Huh???? 

I think Descartes was trying to find something that could be known with
absolute certainty from which he could use the method to construct a larger
and certain view of the world. This seems to me pretty clear in The
Meditations. He starts out recognizing how we can be deceived and step by
step takes it to the logical extreme (where the evil genius is stimulating
what might be simply a brain in a vat) and in the end realizes that even
then "when I doubt, I necessarily exist at least as a doubting thing."

I think this can't be reasonably denied. It's pretty tough to see how anyone
could not be sure that in questioning whether one exists, one must exist.
He may not have been as successful extending the groundwork, but the
foundation is pretty impressive.

> From: "Justin Walsh" <jwalsh at bigpond.net.au>
> Reply-To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 05:41:37 +1000
> To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Cc: <g.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl>
> Subject: Re: Lots of concurrency
> 
> Hi Alan
> "I think" that the point is grossly being lost here.
> First; Decartes,  father of the enlightenment, was a "mechanist". His
> dualist theories, expressed in the "cogito ergo sum": "I think, therefore I
> am" is proven incorrect.
> To replace "think" with "experience" does not change that fact. This "mode"
> of argumentation is  called  "word smithing".
> Please study the whole expression again from the "point of view" of the "I"
> that is doing the thinking.
> The above expression is only half of the syllogism. Look for the Major which
> expresses the "unity of the concepts"         ie the Idea itself.
> Transcend the Minor and the Consequent!
> Therein lies the clue: Logic of Transcendence.
> Transcendent logic
> Analytic logic
> Synthetic logic
> none
> Sorry! I could not let that one pass without comment.
> Justin